


Dark City

by kormanine



Category: Meet the Robinsons (2007), Tangled (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24759187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kormanine/pseuds/kormanine
Summary: Mutants. Guardians. Time travel. All be reasons as to why Wilbur Robinson does not trust his father.
Kudos: 1





	1. zero

**_HE ONLY HAD A FEW MINUTES_ ** until the devil's hour-a few fleeting minutes to make amends with this demon of a woman who evidently couldn't show up on time for the life of her. But this is most likely some intended method to shorten his time and  _ really _ put his life on the line. Not that it gave him nerves or whatever. This was a challenge in the Mystery Man's perspective, and if his face weren't wrapped in the shadows of the alley, one could see the smirk and know that he were up for a good challenge any time.

The infamous Mystery Man is tugging at the cuffs of his (stolen) tux, reminiscing about the few times  _ back in the ol' days _ -when desperate times called for the blade hidden in his sleeve-when a hooded figure seems to glide from the shadows and into the little area where the moonlight is revealed. Nails (or claws) darker than night make a chilling appearance, along with fingers that still look slender in a head-tilting way, as the woman pushes her hood gently back, a mass of black curls flaying out thickly against her shoulders. She's a beautiful woman, wrinkle-free and wicked-looking, like a skeleton fed in just the right places.

He smirks at the two figures behind her, wondering what poor unfortunate souls she's 'spellbound' just for safety in the safest part of town. It's been almost ten minutes and he hasn't heard a single police siren, which was astonishing in such a city. Deciding not to reveal himself, he checks his watch with no particular need to look at the time, just to appear somewhat confident enough to piss her off. "You've only given me, what, three minutes?"

(Two.)

She places her hands on her hips. "Save the tea party for another day, would you kindly?"

"Come one, it's been years since we've done this. And speaking of those years, you don't look a day older since the last time I say you-"

"These men aren't for safety, if you were wondering," she drawls, pausing to shift her weight to the other leg. "This isn't my only stop tonight and I hate meeting people with the blood on me. You understand that, don't you . . .  _ Flynn Rider _ ."

He scoffed. He should have expected she'd have the same playtime intentions as his own, but of course, as a skilled actor, he wasn't going to make that obvious in any way. Keeping to the shadows, he leans away from the wall to face her fully-well, as much as a silhouette can face someone. "I'm sure you know I don't go by that name anymore, but the, uh . . .  _ nostalgia _ is appreciated."

"Tell me: why Mystery Man?"

"Ah, we wouldn't want to waste time, now would we?"

(One minute.)

"Now," he claps his gloved hands, rubbing them together excitedly. "you have the golden flower, I have something you want."

"Which, I dare ask, is what?"

Her sentence serves as a tasteful reminder that her entire being is formed from the greediest wishes and the destruction of being unsatisfied. Not to mention, the latter always comes in the most gruesome ways, because she comes first in the world or there might not be a world.

"Have you heard of the Guardians?"

She scoffs with a roll of her eyes, jabbing her fingertips into her temple. "What does a childhood euphemism have to do with this?"

"Because maybe it wasn't just a euphemism for war. Maybe they really did exist, but under the noses of people who didn't want to believe."

"You can't give me the Guardians. Even if they were real, they're dead."

"They are. But what if I were to tell you there could be a creation of a new group? A bunch of fresh-faced Guardians following the old ones."

Her eyes narrow; it seems like she's finally taking him seriously. "You're entertaining the idea of a next generation."

"A whole new generation. A whole new story. A whole new  _ war _ ."

"I don't care for war."

Good, she's picking out the flaws and such, things she doesn't like. He has her attention.

"But you care for  _ immortality _ . The Guardians were immortal beings-never aged nor grayed. They were forever. And, perhaps, I may have discovered how they became Guardians, how they gained their power."

"I'm not becoming a Guardian."

"You don't have to. But the immortality will finally be yours-"

" _ How _ ?!"

He could see it in her brightly dark eyes, all wide and angry-she wanted this. Out of all the things in the world, he's offered her the one thing she would die for (ironically).

At this, he'll smirk. He'll feel exhilaration in this success and bask in her hair-tugging desperation. Manipulating people has always been her thing, but it seems the tables have turned. So all the woman will see is a shrugging silhouette, but not the cheeky grin. "It's quite the explanation. And you've run out of time a while ago."

Her nostrils flare, agitation radiating from her like steam through her ears. There's a long pause, and he knows for a fact that she's only doing this to appear as if she wasn't anxious for this. "I'll sleep on it."

(Sleep. Ha.) "Glad to hear it."

Because, of course, to become a Guardian—

—you have to die first.

  
  
  
  



	2. one

**_WILBUR ROBINSON IS NOT EXACTLY_ ** what you would call a stereotypical moody teenager (simply because stereotypical moody teenagers don't spend hours of free time trying to break into their father's secret laboratory since  _ the less you know, the better _ -even if those hours of free time are coming from not doing homework), but the image he was setting up now-his feet resting on a desk covered with files, a hand behind his head as he lazily flipped through a Deadpool comic, earbuds blasting-isn't helping his case in any way.

"Run through those files again, we need some sort of coverage story on those disappearances before the press-. . . Wilbur.  _ Wilbur _ ."

At the second hiss of his name, he unplugs his ear buds to meet his mother's passive-aggressive eyes. His eyelids are lazy, as if his mind isn't there, or he turned into a zombie or something.

"Get. Your feet. Off. The table-"

"Right, right-my bad," he mutters quickly, a tad bit indifferent, letting the wheels on the chair turn him the other way.

Franny Robinson blinks and purses her lips at her son's behaviour, then quietly excuses herself from the conversation with her peers. He hears the solid thuds of her high heels against the glossy wood (who the hell even wears high heels in the field?), but even with everything on his mind revolving the growing absence of his father, he still doesn't do anything when she turns the large leather chair around, letting it squeak. Biting his lip, trying not to feel too annoyed because at least he could see his mom and still talk to her without being pushed out a door, he fiddles with the corner of his comic as she tugs out his earphones.

"Young man, look at me," Franny tells him sternly. It takes him a moment, eyelids still drooping, but not as much as before. She sighs, looking into one eye, then the other. "Wanna tell me where these dark clouds are rolling in from?"

He looks back down at his comic, glazing over bloody fight scenes on paper. "Wherever the hell  _ your husband _ is."

_ Ouch _ . Not even gonna refer to him as  _ dad _ .

Franny clears her throat, taming her features so she doesn't look so thrown off. "Where else would  _ your father _ be?"

He shakes his head, suddenly frustrated. "I don't know, mom," he responds, tossing the comic on the desk, looking back at her with wide eyes, laziness gone. "Why don't we know?"

A line appears between Franny's eyebrows. "Wilbur, your father is in the lab, just like he always is-"

" _ Exactly _ ." Struggling to keep his voice down in a police station, he leans forward. "He's  _ always _ in there, to the point that I have to sneak out at night, away from our dingy apartment that we have to stay in because of your new job, just so I could break into our own house to see him. To the-to the point where, as he's pushing me out that lab door, I have to look over his shoulder to see what he's doing-to see what's so important that he's been isolating himself away from-from  _ everything _ ."

He's not mad. He's conflicted. As in: wanting-to-kick-a-chair-across-the-room conflicted.

Franny tilts her head, cheeks rising in a way that made her dark eyes appear as motherly crescent moons. "Wilbur," she starts softly, before looking down and sighing, collecting herself, then looking back up, the motherly eyes having disappeared . . . kind of. "We're not having this conversation here. I just got this job, you know?"

It's a petty little attempt to lighten things up, but he still grins and plays along, turning his head (and the chair) to peer at the other cops and suits over his shoulder. "I'm pretty sure my plan to get you fired is already working."

"Ha-ha," she jokes, grabbing the armrest of the leather chair and turning him back around. "You know, I didn't have to bring you along to live with me in that  _ dingy _ apartment."

"Yeah, you did. Because you want me away from the house, and away from whatever the hell your husband's doing in that lab."

She lets it slide this time to slip him a bit of info. Eyes widening and blinking in false surprise, she straightens herself and crosses her arms. " _ Oh _ . You don't think I'm smart enough to guess you would sneak out?"

He blinks, then sticks with just closing his eyes and sighs in some kind of embarrassment, but he mostly just wants to face palm himself. Why would he underestimate a  _ detective _ of all people, especially his  _ mother _ ?

Franny takes his silence as a signal that the conversation was thankfully over. But as she walks away, just as she has the desk behind her, she hears his voice, blunt and tired, muffled probably by his hands, "You knew. I'm sure you've known  _ all along _ . . . There's a lot you're not telling me, isn't there?"

Wilbur doesn't see the heartbroken face of his mother, but after a moment, as his hands drop from his face and he's glazing over the graphic horrors of his Deadpool comic, he feels a peck on his cheek and the words: "The less you know, the better." With a reassuring squeeze to his shoulder, Franny finally returns to her colleagues.

All those mushy feelings linger for a bit after the affectionate gesture (which he really did need at a time like this), but after a moment, he  _ really _ begins to think.

In his head, Wilbur Robinson confirms something: his mother knows something. It's kind of weird to think that he's doubting his mother of knowing everything his dad was doing, but that just illustrates how much trust has faded in the two weeks they've moved into that apartment due to her new Private Investigations career. Time can't possibly erase the fifteen years of father-and-son relationship they had, but the people Wilbur saw in his lab-people that he didn't know and looked suspiciously like lab rats or test subjects or just innocent people in the wrong place-just might do the trick.

He's gone through that whole denial phase already. He'd freaked out, lost his head, talked to Carl about it and even an old friend. That phase was gone way too soon.

Why isn't Wilbur telling Franny? Because Franny knows something or Franny knows exactly what Cornelius was doing with those people or Franny already guessed that Wilbur is well aware of what's going on even if he isn't completely sure.

. . .

He likes to come to the police station after school. Not only because he hasn't made any friends at his new school, but because the less he sees his dad, the more he wants to see his mom, even if it's just being in the same room with other cops around and little talk is exchanged between the two-he'll take it. Stereotypical moody teenagers yearned for distant emotional connections. And it's the same with teens who break into their father's top secret laboratories.

Having finished his comic, Wilbur is tracing the carved edges of the vintage dark wood desk when the phone, covered in files and other papers, rings. He peers around the back of the chair to see if his mom hears it. He spots her silhouette through the fancy glass of the chief's office, her contorted figure looking like a tangent pattern of three colours: the dark brown of her PI coat and fedora, the black of her hair, and the cream of her skin. Turning back, he shrugs a shoulder as his eyebrows bounce up in this opportunity, grinning slightly, and he answers the call.

"Franny Robinson's phone." Wedging the thing between his cheek and shoulder, he leans back in the chair, propping his feet up on the desk.

The voice is way too low to be normal. If Wilbur had to guess, he would say it was those odd voice manipulators, and that gave him just enough of a taste of adventure to let this act roll out. "This is not Franny Robinson."

"My friend, you are speaking to a trusted colleague who is  _ more _ than happy to pass on a message. I apologize if your desired target is busy, but . . . well, she  _ is _ . So, you got me." He's having fun.

There's a short pause as the voice sighs-but it's an amused sigh. "Just give the phone to your mommy, boy."

That . . . doesn't feel right.

That's  _ not _ right.

Face perplexed, he slowly takes his feet of the desk once again, holding the phone with both hands, bunching up the springy black cord. He waits and listens closely for anything else, but when nothing else comes through except static, he ends up studying the files on the desk as some pathetic distraction. The files are all about those disappearances around the city, specifically the victims, like the big guy in overalls, that weird white-haired kid, the girl with dark blue hair covering her face-

" _ Wilbur _ ."

Shit.  _ Shit _ . "H-How do you know-?"

"Make this easier, boy. Get your ass out of that chair, get your mother out of the chief's office, and tell her that someone wants to talk to her.  _ Now _ ."

He brings the phone away from his ear for his eyes to dart around the station, searching for anyone looking at him, watching him. Cops were walking in and out, faded shadows from the yellow sun casting along the marble floor around the entrance and walking space. Workers were on their phones, talking at their desks and jotting things on notepads and drinking coffee from porcelain mugs decorated with the stupidest sayings. His eyes worked their way up to the catwalk around the second level, where there were people on break, socializing, leaning against the glass edge. This is messing up his head, making his back cold and his throat suddenly dry. As he brings the phone back to his ear, he thinks about this situation and what he could do.

He looks to his mother's contorted figure through the fancy glass of the chief's office, and gulps.

" _ Now _ , kid."

In a weird, protective way, he doesn't want to tell his mom. In a sort of selfish way, he doesn't want to tell his mom. In a stupidly reckless way, he doesn't want to tell his mom. So, he repeats, "I could pass on a message."

The voice sighs. This time it's an annoyed sigh.

Wilbur inhales, trying to gain some smidge of confidence. "Or I could just hang up."

"You do that. We'll call again."

_ We _ . "I'll pick up again."

"Wilbur."

_ Confidence. Confidence. _ "Mysterious-phone-person-who's-probably-watching-me-at-this-very-moment."

Pause. The pause ends up being way too long for Wilbur's patience. He then laughs like popping candy, because when you're freaking out, you laugh nervously. "How badly do you guys need to deliver this message? 'Cause my buttoned lip game is on point."

" _ Tch _ ."

A pause. That pause gives him the hope and the fear that they were giving in. The following words confirm it.

"Cor Street and Delle Road. There's an abandoned bowling alley. We've got information your mother wants."

  
  
  



End file.
